It’s hard to miss Mawa McQueen around Aspen — she’s a local celebrity, after all — and yet we struggled to find her.

In an unassuming business center across from the airport, we drove between a gas station and a liquor store, between a mechanic and a contractor’s office, between an insurance agency and a photo studio, before turning around and finally spotting Mawa’s Kitchen on an upper level.

The door was around back. We entered to find the smiling chef and owner of the restaurant that quickly has risen to fame.

The obscure location almost sank the business, McQueen told us. That was before a James Beard nomination in 2022, followed by another prestigious culinary honor a year later: Mawa’s Kitchen was included in Michelin’s first-ever guide to Colorado.

And so however hidden the restaurant, the word is out on McQueen’s fresh, vibrant, worldly cuisine. It’s inspired by her native Africa and fellow immigrants she grew up around in a poor district of Paris.

McQueen told us she had recently returned to France to inspire youth there: “I said to them, ‘Who created the American dream? Immigrants created the American dream.’”

And largely, they’ve shaped Colorado’s food scene.

McQueen’s is but one story that has inspired us on our ongoing effort to capture the culinary character of this state. We call the series of stories Craving Colorado.

A recurring theme: people and flavors from places far beyond Colorado.

It’s indeed a theme from the Michelin guide. While listing Mawa’s Kitchen with 29 other recommended eateries and awarding nine others a Big Gourmand for quality and affordability, inspectors found five restaurants worthy of a star, the highest honor known worldwide.

One of those stars went to Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder. Here Michelin inspectors found a surprising source of inspiration — “hyper-specific,” they wrote of the food from the little-known region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia in Italy.

Another star went to Denver’s Brutø, which grew from Chef Michael Diaz de Leon’s Mexican heritage. Last year, just a couple of months after the Michelin award, Diaz de Leon posted on Instagram a heartfelt thank you and a surprise announcement.

“I find myself in a place of starvation for exploration, growth and connection with the world,” he wrote. “It’s time for me to experience other cultures, approaches and practices that the world has to offer and teach me.”

He concluded: “Manifestation: The world is my restaurant.”

That could speak to Colorado’s broader industry.

Take The Broadmoor as a microcosm. Colorado Springs’ renowned hotel and foodie paradise has a long history of bringing in chefs from around the globe — from the first executive chef in 1917 to the head chefs we see today.

One of them is Rita Perez, who grew up in Mexico City. Asked about what separated The Broadmoor’s cuisine, she thought of immigrants such as herself leading kitchens across the resort’s several restaurants.

“When you’re cooking, it’s not just about the food,” she said. “It’s about feelings, it’s about how you are treating your ingredients, it’s about where those ingredients are coming from. It’s culture, plus all these things behind the dish.”

It was the flavors of Asia — starting with the flavors of the Chinese family who hosted her as an exchange student — that inspired Natascha Hess’ restaurant. We met the owner of Denver’s Michelin-recognized Ginger Pig last year while she was preparing a Boulder expansion; she was planning bánh mì sandwiches inspired by a recent tour of Vietnam.

We also met the “Ma Ma” behind Zoe Ma Ma, Anna Zoe. The Chinese street food has been a favorite in Boulder since 2010, when Edwin Zoe opened the restaurant for his mother. And, unexpectedly, for college kids around town.

“We had Chinese students that would come here to eat every weekend,” Edwin Zoe recalled. “One student started crying. He said, ‘I’m homesick because the food reminds me of home.’ I always felt very strongly that food has so much power.”

The power to build lives.

The lives of two Italian brothers were uncertain when they arrived to America by boat in 1910. Giuseppe and Vito Gagliano made their way to Pueblo, where they went on to open a grocery of foods imported from Italy.

More than 100 years later, Gagliano’s Italian Market & Deli is a Pueblo institution. The seasoning Vince Gagliano uses for sausage is the same seasoning from his great uncles’ days.

Vince described running the business as an honor. “You should honor the people that came before you and made it easy,” he said.

So Jared Kaplan has done at The Bagel Deli & Restaurant on Denver’s south side.

“My grandfather was my best friend,” Kaplan told us.

His grandfather was Paul Weiner, a Jewish man who fled Vienna in 1939 to escape the Nazis. He settled in Denver alongside another refugee, Lola, who became his wife.

They would go on to open a deli — a place of Reubens piled high and the matzo ball soup, challah, latke, kishke, kugel and other traditional foods of their childhood.

Three generations later, the traditions continue. The Bagel Deli is usually packed.

Said the Weiners’ daughter, Rhoda, looking across the busy dining room: “My dad would just be shaking his head, going, ‘Would you look at this?’”

Look closely around Colorado Springs, one of the city’s top chefs has advised.

Sure, there’s The Broadmoor and downtown restaurants that get the attention, Chef Brother Luck said. But look around the outskirts, he insisted — parts of town Best of the Springs voters have pinpointed for mom-and-pop eateries serving everything from Korean and Indian to Jamaican, Japanese, German and beyond.

“You need to go to South Academy. Go to Fountain, go to Widefield,” Luck said. “You’re gonna find some culture. You’re gonna find history. You’re gonna find stories.”

So we found at Mawa’s Kitchen, however hidden from Aspen’s fancy, touristy core.

This business center across from the airport could be “more of a local place,” McQueen said. “That’s what we’re aiming for.”

Amid the gas station and the mechanic and the contractor’s office and the insurance agency, McQueen envisioned a Mexican restaurant, an Asian restaurant, a Middle Eastern restaurant — anything and everything, she said with eager hope. “I’m recruiting!”